It Will Happen at Boat Harbour

Rick Ryals

Let me start this story by telling you that I have always hated white marlin. They call themselves marlin, and then they sneak around like corner store shoplifters who cry for their Mommy when they get caught. If marlin were TV shows blue marlin would be a January Sunday afternoon Packers vs. Bears game, and white marlin would be a Monday morning version of “The View.”

Despite my hatred of such vile creatures I’ve wanted to lead my buddies, on our boat, to what I consider the ultimate achievement for a weekend crew, the original “grand slam.” Nowadays it seems like everything from a croaker, pinfish, and grunt in the same day is considered a “Grand Slam” but to me and our crew it will always be a blue marlin, a white marlin, and a sail in the same day.

My first opportunity came just last year at the Hopetown Light when the crew of Dos Amigos released a blue and a white before 10 a.m. My hands were shaking as I put together a makeshift dredge and trolled into the shallower water of “The Pocket” looking for a sailfish. We released two more blues that day. Hardly disappointing, but not a grand slam.

Last Saturday morning we decided to fish a half day and get ready to come back to the real world. The Hopetown light had certainly not disappointed us all week, but for whatever reason we had run into more bad luck with staying hooked up, and just generally tough fishing than we usually see there.

My crew would tell you that having a crimp (mine) fail on a big fish is not bad luck, but that’s why I don’t let them write this.

As I was saying, I had just spread my outriggers just off Cherokee Point when one of the little white punks crept up to my daisy chain. Jeff shot out the pitch bait, but I had forgotten to pull in the teaser and soon the thief was carrying the teaser ballyhoo back to show his punk buddies and they were all laughing at how they’d stolen it from me.

From there the day got better. We caught a blue, we missed a couple more, and the mahi bite was strong. Soon we were satisfied with our efforts, and throwing out a big fish lure spread of Black Bart’s and Wide Ranges we started trolling toward North Bar Channel.

High speed bites are usually very exciting, and soon one of the Black Barts took a solid hit. We all saw a bill, and we were ticked to death to be hooked up with what we all expected to be a small blue marlin.

OF COURSE, IT WAS A STUPID SAILFISH. I should have known it would be! Once again “whitey” had beaten me. I know good and well he sent the sailfish. I can just picture him laughing his fins off, that he had beaten us again.

Well you know what? He’s wrong. The DA is still in the slip at Boat Harbour and he has awakened all the superpowers a 60 year old, 5 feet tall, overweight, bald crime fighter. We will be back after our Grand Slam. Whitey will be wearing our tag, and the party at the marina that night will be one for the ages.